Dr Mary Peace
Senior Lecturer
Summary
I am a lecturer in eighteenth-century English literature with a specialism in sentimental discourse and material culture.
About
I am a lecturer in English Literature in the Department of Humanities. I have published widely on sentimental discourse and material culture in the eighteenth century. I am currently a cultural history entitled Sofas, Self and the Rise of the Novel.
Teaching
College of Social Sciences and Arts
Over the past five years I have been involved in co-organising a series of day conferences with the Chawton House project and the University of Southampton. Jews and Romanticism (Senate House, February 2006)
Romantic-era Writing for Children (Senate House London, May 2004)
De Stäel's Corinne: A day-conference (Senate House, London, Nov. 2003)
English Literature, Department of Humanities
English Literature and English Studies
Literature of the Eighteenth Century and Romantic Era; The Gothic; Books Matter; The Literature of Things
Research
My current research project is a cultural history of the sofa in the eighteenth century.
Publications
Key Publications
Peace, M. (2016). Changing sentiments and the Magdalen Hospital: luxury, virtue and the senses in Eighteenth-Century culture. Abingdon: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Changing-Sentiments-and-the-Magdalen-Hospital-Luxury-Virtue-and-the-Senses/Peace/p/book/9781848934948
Journal articles
Peace, M. (2020). Of Things in Austen: Or, Encounters with Bonnets, Harps, and Sofas. Persuasions : the Jane Austen Journal On-Line, 40 (2). http://jasna.org/publications/persuasions-online/volume-40-no-2/peace/
Peace, M. (2007). The Magdalen Hospital and the fortunes of whiggish sentimentality in mid-eighteenth century Britain: "well-grounded" exemplarity vs. "romantic" exceptionality. The eighteenth century, 48 (2), 125-148. http://doi.org/10.1353/ecy.2007.0010
Peace, M. (2002). Epicures in rural pleasures: desire, dissent and sentimental economy in Sarah Scott's Millennium Hall. Women's writing, 9 (2), 305-316. http://doi.org/10.1080/09699080200200169
Quinn, V., & peace, M. (1997). Luxurious sexualities. Textual Practice, 11 (3), 405-416. http://doi.org/10.1080/09502369708582286
Book chapters
Peace, M. (2018). The “Adam Smith problem” and the retreat of sentimental virtue from the world. In Adelman, R., & Packham, C. (Eds.) Political economy, literature & the formation of knowledge, 1720-1850. (pp. 159-182). New York: Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Political-Economy-Literature--the-Formation-of-Knowledge-1720-1850/Adelman-Packham/p/book/9781138542136
Peace, M. (2016). The Economy of Nymphomania: Luxury, Virtue, Sentiment and Desire in Mid-Eighteenth Century Medical Discourse. In At the Borders of the Human Beasts, Bodies and Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern Period. Palgrave Macmillan
(2015). Figuring the London Magdalen House: Mercantilist Hospital, Sentimental Asylum or Proto-Evangelical Penitentiary? In Prostitution and Eighteenth-Century Culture. (pp. 155-170). Routledge: http://doi.org/10.4324/9781315655703-19
Peace, M. (2013). Sentimentality in the Service of Methodism: John Wesley’s Abridgment of Henry Brooke’s The Fool of Quality (1765–1770). In McInelly, B.C. (Ed.) Religion in the age of enlightenment. New York: AMS Press, Inc: http://www.amspressinc.com/rae.html
Peace, M. (2012). "On the soft beds of luxury most kingdoms have expired": 1759 and the lives of prostitutes. In Regan, S. (Ed.) Reading 1795 : literary culture in mid-eighteenth- century Britain and France. (pp. 75-94). Lanham, Md: Bucknell University Press
Peace, M. (2011). Asylum, reformatory or penitentiary? : secular sentiments vs proto-evangelical religion in The Histories of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen House (1760). In Lewis, A., & Ellis, M. (Eds.) Prostitution and eighteenth-century culture : sex, commerce and morality. London: Pickering and Chatto
Peace, M. (2000). Prostitution and the growth of desire : the rise and fall of sentimental economics in the eighteenth century. In Wheeler, W. (Ed.) The Political Subject Essays on the Self from Art, Politics and Science. Lawrence & Wishart Limited
Books
(n.d.). Anti-Jacobin Novels, Part II, Volume 10. Routledge. http://doi.org/10.4324/9781351223140
Scholarly editions
(2005). The Infernal Quixote: A Tale of the Day. Pickering and Chatto.
Theses / Dissertations
Khan, H. (2016). Masculinity and the whoremonger in mid-eighteenth century memoirs does whoremongering conform to contemporary ideals of masculinity? (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Peace, M. http://doi.org/10.7190/shu-thesis-00035
Other publications
London, A. (2022). The Cambridge Guide to the English Novel, 1680-1820. Cambridge University Press
Peace, M. (2022). Review of The Closet: The Eighteenth-Century architecture of intimacy, by Danielle Bobker [Book review]. Aphra Behn Society: http://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.12.1.1303
Postgraduate supervision
I am currently supervising a PhD by Rose Hilton on the passions and the idea of the self in eighteenth century play texts by women.